delicious the mixture of sweets with which it had associated itself! Under warm suns, where vines are the offspring of Nature, nothing can be more beautiful than the forest tree, adorned with their twisting branches, hanging from bough to bough, and laden with fruit,— -the clusters clear Half through the foliage seen. We have had occasion to see vines in all their beauty, in Italy. It is well known that all vegetable productions are found best, not in that latitude where Nature spontaneously produces them best, but in a latitude somewhat colder, where they may be raised by the industry of man. There it is that science comes into action, and works its wonderful effects, whilst in the warmer country Nature is left to do the whole. Thus it is that we have better gardens in Scotland than in England—better farmers in Britain than in France— and better wines in France than in Italy. But the superior mode of cultivating the vine in France for wine, annihilates its beauty. A vineyard secn at a distance is like a turnip field; and when seen close at hand, it is like a field planted with rows of raspberry bushes. How different is the plant, when so treated, from those which are permitted to ramble all over our picturesque, clean looking cottages, in the south of England, where every man, in the language of Scripture, literally "sits under his vine." In Italy, the Florentine dominions, and especially the rich Val d'Arno, exhibit the vine in its best state of Italian cultivation. But although its growth is there strictly attended to, and duly restrained, it is never cut down to the humble measure of stature to which it is restricted in France, but it is married to the elm, mulberry, or other trees, rows of which line the roads and subdivide the enclosures. These trees are generally shortened, as are also the branches which spring from the truncated top, so that they present something of the appearance of huge candelabra, and when seen without their leaves in winter, they are any thing but picturesque. But the long tendrils of the vines are led across from one tree to another, so that when the whole of them are in leaf, and in fruit, nothing can be more beautiful than the festoons they form, weighed down as they are by the heavy purple bunches which they sustain. In the Neapolitan states, where less care is bestowed, we have seen the grapes hanging in the tops of the tallest poplars, to which the aspiring vines had climbed; and we well remember the direful effects of a sudden hurricane, which once overtook us on the road between Salerno and Pompeii. It came on in an instant, like the blast from some enormous bellows, and without giving us the least warning. So terrible was its force, that we were compelled to stop under the shelter of a house by the wayside, lest the open carriage we travelled in, and the four horses that drew it, should have been blown over; and whilst we remained there, the very building seemed to shake, and the long row of tall poplars that bordered the way to windward, was bowed flat across the road, so that no carriage could have passed without certain destruction. In less than half an hour the hurricane went, as it came, in an instant; and as we pursued our way, we found the surface of the road covered with grapes, as if it had just received a new coat of gravel. Among the most beautiful appendages of this hanging kind, which we have in England, is the hop. In cultivation it is disagreeable: but in its rude natural state, twisting carelessly round the branches of trees, I know not whether it is not as beautiful as the vine. Its leaf is similar; and though the bunches of hop, beautiful as they are, and fragrant, are not equal to the clusters of the vine; yet it is a more accommodating plant, hangs more loosely, and is less extravagant in its growth. In artificial landscape, indeed, where the subject is sublime, these appendages are of little value. Such trifling ornaments the scene rejects. The rough oak, in the dignity of its simple form, adorns the foreground better. But in festive, or Bacchanalian subjects, (if such subjects are ever proper for description,) when the sportive nymphs and satyrs take their repose at noon, or gambol in the shade of evening, nothing can more beautifully adorn their retreat, or more characteristically mark it, than these pendent plants, particularly the mantling vine, hanging, as I have here described it, in rich festoons from bough to bough. The rooting also of trees is a circumstance on which their beauty greatly depends. I know not whether it is reckoned among the maladies of a tree, to heave his root above the soil. Old trees generally do. But whether it be a malady or not, it is certainly very picturesque. The more they raise the ground around them, and the greater number of radical knobs they heave up, the firmer they seem to establish their footing upon the earth, and the more dignity they assume. An old tree, rising tamely from a smooth surface, (as we often find it covered with earth in artificial ground,) loses half its effect; it does not appear as the lord of the soil, but to be stuck into it; and would have a still worse effect on canvass than it has in nature. Pliny gives us an account of the roots of certain ancient oaks in the Hercynian forest, which appears rather extravagant; but which I can easily conceive may be true. These roots, he says, heave the ground upwards, in many places, into lofty mounts; and in other parts, where the earth does not follow them, the bare roots rise as high as the lower branches, and twisting round, form, in many places, portals so wide that man and horse may ride upright through them.* This indeed is somewhat higher than picturesque beauty requires it borders rather on the fantastic. În general, however, the higher the roots are, the more picturesque they appear. To the adventitious beauties of trees, we may add their susceptibility of motion, which is capable at least of being a considerable source of beauty. The waving heads of some, and the undulation of others, give a continual variety to their forms. In Nature the motion of trees is certainly a circumstance of great beauty. Shakespeare formerly made the observation: -Things in motion sooner catch the eye, Than what stirs not. To the painter also the moving tree affords often a piece of useful machinery, when he wishes to express the agitation of air. In this light it may even be considered as an objection to trees of firmer branches, as the oak, that their resistance to every breath of air *Nat. Hist. Book xvi. chap. 2. deprives them, at least, of one source of beauty, and subjects them to be sooner gotten by heart, if I may so phrase it, than other trees, which, yielding to the pressure, are every instant assuming new modifications. We have seen a picture by Gasper Poussin, in which the violence of a storm and hurricane is so admirably expressed by the bending of the trees, and the crouching, and in some cases the prostrate positions of the figures, as almost to lead us to fancy, whilst we looked on it, that we heard the noise of the wind among the vexed and tortured branches. From the motion of the tree, we have also the pleasing circumstance of the chequered shade, formed under it by the dancing of the sunbeams among its playing leaves. This circumstance, though not so much calculated for picturesque use, (as its beauty arises chiefly from its motion) is yet very amusing in nature; and may also be introduced in painting, when the tree is at rest. But it is one of those circumstances which requires a very artful pencil. In its very nature it opposes the grand principle of massing light and shade. However, if it be brought in properly, and not suffered to glare, it may have its beauty. But whatever becomes of this circumstance in painting, it is very capable of being pleasingly wrought up in poetry: The chequer'd earth seems restless as a flood Brush'd by the winds. So sportive is the light, And dark'ning and enlightening (as the leaves This effect is more than amusing,-it is exquisitely beautiful, and only to be surpassed by the wonderful brilliancy produced by the same circumstance when the obtrusive rays fall on the surface of water, and particularly of gently rippling water. The effect of a ray of moonlight so admitted, as it were by stealth, is even yet more glorious, whether the field of its reception be the shaven turf, the level road, or the glassy stream, and this of course arises from the superior depth of the shadow to which it is opposed. We agree with Mr Gilpin, that the attempt to introduce such effects in painting is very hazardous, and rarely successful. SECTION IV. HAVING thus examined trees in a general view, I shall now particularize, and endeavour to explain the beauties and defects of their several kinds, as they regard landscape. I shall first consider them as individuals; and afterwards in composition. Trees range under two general heads,-deciduous and evergreen. In this order I shall take them, confining my remarks to those only of both kinds which are of English growth, whether native or naturalized. Among deciduous trees, the oak presents itself first. It is a happiness to the lovers of the picturesque, that this noble plant is as useful as it is beautiful. From the utility of the oak, they derive this advantage, that it is every where found. In the choice indeed of its soil it is rather delicate. For though it is rather undistinguishing, during its early growth, while its horizontal fibres straggle about the surface of the earth; yet when its tap-root begins to enter the depths of the soil, perhaps no tree is nicer in its discriminations. If its constitution be not suited here, it may multiply its progeny indeed, and produce a thriving copse; but the puny race will never rise to lordly dignity in the forest, nor furnish navies to command the ocean. Old Evelyn says of the oak, "To enumerate now the incomparable uses of this wood were needless: but so precious was the esteem of it, that, of old, there was an express law among the twelve tables concerning the very gathering of the very acorns, though they should be found fallen into another man's ground. The land and the sea do sufficiently speak for the improvement of this excellent material; houses and ships, cities and navies, are built with it; and there is a kind of it so tough, and extremely compact, that our sharpest tools will hardly enter it, as scarcely the very fire itself, in which it consumes but slowly, as seeming to partake of a ferruginous and metallin shining nature, proper for sundry robust uses. That which is twined and a little wreathed (easily to be discerned by the texture |